Shrimp...On A Stiiiick! / Key West 12

EATING DOWN HIGHWAY ONE

With Gene Morgan and his favorite traveling companion Nancy

Within an hour from getting off our flight in the Key West airport we were eating shrimp on a stick at BO’s fish wagon.

It is not really a wagon, but a crazy building that looks like it was put together with pieces of junk found on the beach after the last hurricane. This is Key West fancy. How it looks doesn’t matter, they got shrimp on a stick for 5 bucks a hit. Believe me folks, it’s a drug.

We ate here more times than anywhere else in the Keys. Every Friday night they would have a jam session featuring the coolest band on the island, and good music always makes us hungry.

Shrimp on a stick is shrimp grilled on a stick. (skewers for you elegant folks.) Wow, who would have guessed? It can be either barbeque, teriyaki, or plain. (that is the way I like it, I want to taste my seafood!) Their french fries taste just like the one mom used to make. That and an import beer, and you got a feast made in paradise.

We ate so much shrimp on a stick that one time we came in and they told us they weren’t gonna have it on the menu anymore. They gave us some kind of rap about how they had too many kinds of grilled shrimp on their menu and the boss wanted to cut back. I think they just wanted to sell more of their more expensive dinners and grouper sandwiches. Boy did we complain. The next time we came in the shrimp was back where it belonged, on a stick. These shrimp on a stick pictures are probably the worse we took. We were new to the island and too hungry to take great photos.

We did have one of their grilled shrimp dinners one time. It was big and juicy and came with a simple lettuce salad. You notice the usual cocktail sauce, but we never dipped in it. They had their own homemade key lime mayonnaise sauce. It was tangy and sweet.

Man, writing all this really makes me hungry. Have I said that before?